A standout among all the Hong Kong-inspired cafes that line the west side of Wardour St, Cafe TPT is a template for how all Chinese restaurants of this type in London can and should be — competent at almost everything and exceptional at a select few standouts. Fatty brisket curry on rice and Singapore noodles, elastic and smoky from the wok, are great options, but it’s the pork chop Macau-style with onions, cheesy bechamel and spoonfuls of chilli oil that is unmissable — a chaise longue of a comfort dish that is best eaten in the early hours of the morning to soak up a Soho night. Open with outdoor seating.

One of the few restaurants which has benefited from the recent Chinatown development, moving from Charing Cross Road to Gerrard Street’s main drag has propelled Food House into cult status among young Chinese students who take respite from Dover Street Market in red oil noodles. The menu is shared between Sichuan — dry hotpots and whole fish cooked in chilli oil — and heartier central Chinese fare of belt noodles, rou jia mo flatbreads with meat, and skewers. Make sure to bring people: this is one of the few places where dumplings can be ordered by the 30.

Chinatown used to be a village of nighthawks, but now only a smattering of Cantonese cafes still cater towards the late-night revellers and the post-shift chefs. Old Town ‘97 is one of them, still open until 4 a.m., where the food is a compilation of the best midnight snacks. Ho fun in slippery egg sauce, charred and gloopy, sweet salted egg yolk chicken wings, better than average roast meats, and of course LSE rice. This og London off-menu option is eggs, cubed: pork belly in honey and pepper egg sauce, egg fried rice and a fried egg on top.

The best of Chinatown’s newer wave snack shops, Good Friend is a small shrine to various ways of frying a chicken. Flattened breast as big as a human head? Yes. Small pieces of popcorn chicken? Yes. Stuffed with molten cheese? Double yes. But the best and most evil way is the chicken skin, which absolutely must be consumed within about 10 seconds of exiting the fryer, showered in whatever flavoured powder one desires.

The best of the new Sichuan restaurants changing the face of Chinatown and introducing central London to bludgeoning chilli heat and ma la. The original location on Leicester St is better than the shiny new one, and it’s best to bring a group: the things to get here are the huge and customisable dry hot pots, whole splayed sea basses atop an unstable island of tofu in an ocean of chilli oil, and the crawfish — red on red on red — in which Sichuan peppercorns are hidden in every crevice.

Still the best siu mei in Chinatown, particularly the duck, whose well rendered thick blanket of fat and sweet marinade ensures queues every night. The Gerrard Street branch is better than the Wardour Street one, but the Little Four Seasons next door is a revealing, small microcosm of Chinatown’s direction, featuring the same roast meats alongside stew-like hotpots in a pivot to capture the new mainland student population.

A reminder that everything food-wise originates in China, Joy Luck used to be home to one of London’s great ramens — in la mian form — before the immigration raids, and home to one of its great pastas — its Wuhan dry noodles — before its original location shut down. These alkaline noodles, served with sesame paste, chilli oil, chopped chillis, pickles, and two cloves of minced garlic, retain their riotous yet impeccably balanced character at Nusa Dua, where the chefs are residing during the search for a new, permanent restaurant. It’s still easily as good as anything served at Padella or at any of London’s other new wave Italian joints.